Veni, Vidi, Scripsi

Items from the Mail Bag – I’m Full and Feeling Generous Edition

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the US, a favorite holiday of mine because I happen to like turkey… and most of the traditional staples of the day aside from yams… and because there is no giving of gifts or sending of cards involved. That can wait until tomorrow. Plus we always host, so there is no need to leave the house, though we are expecting a mere dozen around the table this year, down from double that number in some past years.

So in a fit of tryptophan fueled generosity, here is some of what has dropped into the blog mail bag.

BioWare let me know I am in again for the SWTOR beta. Maybe playing a jedi this coming weekend can redeem what failed to charm me with blaster combat. A pre-order hangs in the balance.

Already installed... just need to patch

Mike sent me five (5) special keys for their Facebook game D&D Heroes of Neverwinter to hand out to readers. The first five people who follow me on Twitter and tweet to me the phrase “Gimme gimme gimme I can’t help myself” in reply to the twee that links to this post will get those keys. Figuring out my Twitter account is the only mild barrier to entry. (It is in the side bar. And you must follow me so I can reply directly to you with the key. You can unfollow me once I give out the codes. I probably would.)

The above mentioned Mike is also trying to connect with me in Linked In. While I have created a net persona for Wilhelm Arcturus, I haven’t really gone that far. I did, however, continue to build such a back story for a persona I create in high school. It is easy in Silicon Valley. I just had him working for companies like Taligent, General Magic, and Silicon Graphics. People from those places have actually connected with him too.

Violeta from Best Games Media Group Ltd. wanted me to mention a new site called Gamingator.com, which looks like it sells games. It is probably some sort of scam. Sure, fine, just pass me some more pumpkin pie.

I have a note from The Sims Social offering me 2000 simoleons (one of the in-game currencies… and not the good one) if I will come back and play, proving that no matter how many ways you tell Facebook to disconnect you from an external app, once that app has your data you can never be rid of them.

On the same thread of never being free from a game once you play it, Night Owl Games wants to let me know that Dungeon Overlord, their Facebook game, has left beta and launched a new world. They even have a video on YouTube. I tried this game back in June. I could have sworn it was an SOE game. Was SOE just publishing it, or was this related to the great big downsizing at SOE this summer?

Tracey, who might actually read the blog, wanted to know if I had seen anything about Continent of the Ninth Seal, a Korean MMO action MMO that might make it to the US next year. Timing-wise, this might have be related to comments I made about blaster combat in SWTOR. Amway, the answer is… well… I have now!

Christine Kane wanted to tell me about her article comparing Facebook to Tag. However, the analogy breaks down really fast (when did the “cool kids” ever play tag?) and, frankly, aren’t we a little past something that says, essentially, “Hey, Facebook is popular!” Sorry Christine.

And then a number of people… bots… mailing lists… whatever… somehow I got a bunch of press release about iOS or Android games which I am not going to bother to link because I do not own a device that runs either operating system… though if I had to pick one, it would be the Atari’s Greatest Hits because it works with the iCade.

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3 thoughts on “Items from the Mail Bag – I’m Full and Feeling Generous Edition”

When I was eight or nine years old, the cool kids absolutely did play Tag. Or Touch, as we generally called it, although we did say”tag” when we tagged someone.

There was a gang of boys who decided what game got played each playtime, and while it was always pretty good-natured, whatever that gang chose to play would take over most of the central area of the playground. We didn’t use the word “cool” but if you wanted to be one of the gang and the gang leader decided that today was a Tag day, then playing Tag was what the cool kids did. Until the gang leader had enough of it, anyway.

I don’t know. My memories, admittedly aged and full of errors, seem to recall that by the time a group was universally recognized as “the cool kids” playing tag (or any such childish things) was one sure fire way to not be counted as part of the group.

Anyway, tag is still a bad analogy for Facebook and it is a pretty bad article. Somebody’s high school creative writing assignment I would guess, and grudgingly done.